Why Some NBA Teams Still Can't Make a Dollar
The NBA can be defined by a lot of things: sick dunks, sick players, its rivalries and a laundry list of others. Still, all of those mean nothing without three important aspects: money, money and more money.
The almighty dollar plays a huge role in each of the 30 NBA teams' day to day operations, as the cash flow goes beyond mere salaries. There's advertising, PR, ticket sales, etc... Believe it or not, a select few of these 30 teams are barely getting by in terms of finances.
Why can't these teams make a dollar? Well, let's start off by saying that there's no competitive balance in the league, whatsoever.
Look at it this way, folks. As I mentioned before, today's NBA has 30 teams. Since 1980, only nine of those 30 have won NBA championships.
Those nine: The Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and, most recently, the Dallas Mavericks.
The answer to why this is the case is simple. To win a championship, one needs top players. To lure top players, one needs a large supply of money whose sole purpose is to woo said players.
To accumulate that money, one needs a large fan base and to gain that fan base, one's team needs to play in a fairly large market where professional basketball can be sold easily. That said, it's pretty clear as to why the Lakers are making more money than the Sacramento Kings, for example.
Which brings me to my next point. How can a competitive balance exist when some cities have teams they shouldn't have?
Let's start with the Charlotte Bobcats. North Carolina is a basketball-crazy state, as it is home to three of the top college teams in the nation, but that's just it. As good as the Hornets were when they played there, and even though their departure was more about drama surrounding then-owner George Shinn than it was about the city not loving the franchise, the entire state of North Carolina is always going to favor the college game.
The same can be said for the Sacramento Kings. They represented Kansas City/Omaha before and while they were horrible there, it was because of management. Though they ultimately found success out west, Kansas City is still a far better market than Sacramento.
Look at it this way. Being in a major sports market (or a major city) is an automatic advantage for selling tickets. On top of that, where are most of today's NBA stars from? Major cities or their surrounding areas, and fans LOVE watching hometown heroes star on their hometown teams.
Yet, just look at LeBron James. He was doing fine playing for a smaller market team, which also happened to be near his hometown, and he dropped them like a dirty napkin so he could go to a larger market and play alongside other superstars.
I'm not condoning what James did, but the sad truth is that NBA players do not want to play in small markets like Charlotte, Sacramento or even Indiana. They all want to play in bigger markets like New York, Los Angeles and Miami. That being said, it's really no wonder at all that some NBA teams have a hard time making a profit.
Fortunately, the new CBA is set up so that a competitive balance can someday exist. Sacramento just struck a deal for a new arena, so that could help lure some upper-tier players. Still, the league as a whole needs a tremendous makeover as to how business is conducted. There is no reason that once-talented teams like the Kings and Hornets should be struggling just to stay afloat.
If players were less fixated on winning and making a big paycheck and more so on just playing the game, perhaps this problem wouldn't exist.
